


sweet comic valentine

by mysteriesofloves



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, F/M, it’s just self indulgent fluff. that’s it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29454165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysteriesofloves/pseuds/mysteriesofloves
Summary: She hates Dan Humphrey. She really does. Any gut punch of a reaction to seeing him calmly wrangle rowdy children is purely biological.
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf
Comments: 25
Kudos: 101





	sweet comic valentine

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a little valentines treat for me but i hope others enjoy too <3

It started three years ago.

Seasonally inappropriate flannel and vaguely attractive in a Serena-mistake kind of way, he stirred a tablespoonful of sugar into his cup. She might’ve warned against the teacher’s lounge coffee but she’d just come off a fight over the phone and wasn’t feeling very friendly.

She cleared her throat. He half-turned, blinked, then smiled. “Hi.”

“You’re in my way,” she said back.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

He side-stepped enough to make space for her, still standing there as she clicked on the kettle for her tea. He blew on his mug, then said: “I’m Dan.

“You’re  _ hovering.” _

Dan laughed good-naturedly. “I’m new.”

“And that explains why you’re hovering?”

“You must be Blair Waldorf,” he said. “Epperly warned me about you.”

Blair didn’t ask. She didn’t care. 

Nevertheless, good-natured-for-God-knows-what-reason Dan continued: “Venomous to anyone over the age of nine.”

“Maybe you should back away then.”

To his credit, he does. To hers, it was a really bad fight. 

“Do you always take coffee with your half a bag of sugar?”

“Twenty five six year olds in a confined space. We all have our vices.”

_ Humphrey. _ G1. She’d seen the name plaqued above the door across from hers. Oh, joy. 

She plopped two tea bags in her cup, reaching for the kettle as it whistled. 

“Woah. They let you around kids with that?”

Blair snatched her hand away defensively. “They let you around kids without a shower?”

“Didn’t mean to offend. Just be careful you don’t cut something on that thing.”

“Maybe I’ll get your hair. That’ll do us all a favour.”

She looked up, meeting Dan’s eyes with a prize-fighting scowl, and then —

“My dress!”

Her white dress. Her brand new white dress. Her brand new white dress covered in a cupful of steaming hot shitty teacher’s lounge coffee. 

“Shit – I’m sorry –“

“You’re insane!”

“God, I am  _ so _ sorry, let me –“

“They shouldn’t allow  _ you _ around children, you  _ psychopath!” _

“It was an accident!”

“Accident, my ass, you freak!”

So it’s been three years, and she’s dropped the ring, and Dan Humphrey —

“Everyone say hi Miss Epperly!”

Dan Humphrey is still  _ there. _

“Look busy,” Blair chides, waving a hand at the group of girls sitting near her desk. 

“We  _ are _ busy,” says Hadley, the leader of their little group, pushing her glasses up with her pencil. 

_ “Busier,”  _ Blair says, smoothing down her skirt, poised with chalk in hand as if she ever actually writes on the chalkboard. 

There’s a chorus of obnoxiously loud, sweet-sounding giggles from across the hall, and then the click of heels rounds nearer, until Epperly’s mane of blond hair is peeking into Blair’s classroom, eyes roaming around skeptically. She nods a little before retreating back down the hall. Blair slumps back into her seat with a sigh, smiling at Hadley and her group of straight-A angels. There’s another hour of quiet time left, so Blair pulls her withered paperback out of her purse, cracking it open. She’s a line and a half into a particularly steamy scene when —

“Hear our song?”

Blair loves her job, she really does; developing the minds of tomorrow’s leaders and all that — but the fact that she can’t just yell  _ Fuck off, Humphrey! _ has proven to be a real impediment. 

“Is that what that was?”

“Epperly loved it.”

“And I’m sure she’ll love the hyperactivity it’ll garner for the rest of the day. As you can see, my kids are notably better behaved than yours.”

“But my kids are notably  _ cuter _ than yours.”

“Who cares if they’re cute if they have no work ethic?”

“They’re six,” Dan says. “And that kid over there’s reading a comic book.”

_ “What _ my students choose to do with their quiet time is up to them, as long as they’re doing it  _ quietly. _ I’m not a dictator.”

“The Stalin-esque hat says differently.”

Her hand raises to the rim of her hat consciously, before dropping back into her lap. She scowls. “Shouldn’t you be in there making sure they aren’t eating erasers?”

Dan nods seriously. “Mhm. I’ll let you get back to your –“  _ porn, _ he mouths, then ducks out of the doorway before she can do something rash, like throw her shoe at him. 

She sinks back into her seat, pressing her fingers over eyelids. “Jason, put the comics away.”

*

Dan Humphrey is a guitar-strumming, green-tea-drinking, muppet-turned-man who pops up in her sexual fantasies from time to time like a clown on a spring to remind her that absolutely nothing is sacred. He bakes cookies for school bake sales. He crouches down every morning to high five each one of the kids he gets paid to babysit all day. He’s —

“Perfect?” Serena supplied. 

_ “Aggravating,”  _ Blair corrected. 

She hates Dan Humphrey. She really does. Any gut punch of a reaction to seeing him calmly wrangle rowdy children is purely biological. 

(There’s surely a scientific explanation for the woozy feeling she gets when he makes them laugh, when he picks them up after they’ve fallen, when he hugs them when they cry.)

Holiday festivities had become something of a vehicle for ( _ petty, _ as Serena has been quick to point out) competition between Waldorf-G4 and Humphrey-G1. Trick or treating wagers and caroling clashes and Easter egg hunting contests — if there was an activity to be had, Dan and Blair had found a way to make it something they could use against the other.

(And there was that one staff holiday party, where they’d degenerated a group conversation into a one-on-one debate over the merit of Kenneth Anger and she’d stomped away from his stupidity, and he’d followed her, because apparently annoying her five days a week wasn’t enough and he insisted on working unpaid overtime, and they’d found themselves coming to a stop under a mistletoe. He’d gone a shade between baby and bubblegum, muttering,  _ Keep moving, we don’t have to, just go.  _

But something about his sugary sweet blush and the actual, very real, inordinate amount of sugar rushing in her veins had made her stand her ground, saying,  _ You think I’m going to back down from tradition with witnesses present? _

So he’d kissed her. Unsure and scratchy from his scruff but still lingering and sweet, so sweet that she immediately downed another cup of punch and went home. And never thought about it again. Ever.)

Ostensibly, Humphrey had taken Halloween — her classroom-to-haunted-house transformation was way better than his, but you can’t really beat a bunch of six year olds dressed up adorably as pop culture characters. Christmas-slash-Hanukkah, however, had left them in a sort of grey zone (her tree both bigger and brighter than his, but his make-your-own-menorah crafts admittedly impressive). And now, a week out from Valentine’s day, Blair is determined to reign victorious. 

*

“Someone’s got a class full of admirers.”

With her phone pressed to her ear, she waves Dan off with a dismissive hand, but he stands his ground, hovering behind her desk.

“Duane Reade chocolates,” she admonishes, clicking her phone off. “I look after your kids eight hours a day and you get me drugstore chocolate! Couldn’t even step into a Li-Lac.” 

She finally looks up at him. Dan always looks at her a little like she’s a travelling circus performer. He’s wearing that grey sweater she likes, the one that hugs the curves of his biceps, over-washed cotton making him look so soft and pliable, so —

He sets a tupperware container full of cookies on the desk. They’re pink and red and heart-shaped. She frowns at them. 

“What is that?”

“Cookies.”

“I’m not  _ blind. _ I mean, what are they for?”

“You,” he says. “Well, your PTA meeting. But there’s some in there just for you.”

“Are they poisoned?”

“Only the sugar free ones.”

_ Gut punch.  _ A real knockout. 

“You’re a loser.”

He clutches at his chest. “You wound me.”

She taps a contemplative finger on the lid, then picks up the container and sets it aside. She smiles at him, as dismissive as her wave. 

He still just stands there.

“You gonna eat these?” he says, reaching for a bag of candy hearts on the top of her pile of student gifts, then doesn’t wait for an answer, pulling up a too-small chair and kicking his feet up on the edge of her desk. He rips open the plastic bag, plopping a tiny sugar heart into his mouth, sucking on it with his brows drawn together. 

Once Blair gets over the initial disgust at his position (and that damn woozy feeling), she purses her lips. “You spend too much time around six year olds.”

He tosses a candy heart at her, landing in her lap.  _ UR CUTE,  _ it reads, and she tosses it back with a scowl. 

“Go trash your own classroom, you heathen.”

He flings a heart into the air, catching it in his mouth with a wide, proud smile. She says, “If you choke, I won’t help you.”

Another piece of candy debris bounces off the desk and into her hand. This one says:  _ BE MINE.  _

“Sooo,” he says, smiling smugly as she flicks the candy proposition back across the desktop. “Watcha doin’?”

“Setting up a field trip to the Degas exhibit.”

“Yeah? What for?”

“What do you mean  _ what for? _ For our lesson on art history.”

“You teach lessons on art history?”

“Basic introduction to art history. You’d be surprised how much the kids like it. Probably because of said field trips.”

“And what exactly are frilly dresses and tutus going to teach them about art history?”

“How can you reduce an artist's entire collection of works like that? Degas challenged the traditional values of art. He’s one of the most influential Impressionists of his time.”

“And you plan on explaining this to nine year olds?”

She presses her lips together. “They are also pretty. I like them because they’re pretty. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“I prefer Cassatt,” he says. “You have room for any more chaperones?”

“You’d want to come along? To look at frilly dresses and tutus?”

Dan shrugs. “I think I’d like you to change my mind.”

*

“What do you know about him?”

Blair looks up from her folder to where Kerri — Hadley’s mother — sticks her nose in the direction of who she’s assuming is supposed to be Dan. 

Blair likes Kerri. She’s stylish and sweet in a way that doesn’t feel fake, and Hadley’s staked claim on the  _ teacher’s pet  _ label. They give her Maribelle chocolates. But something about the glint in Kerri’s eye makes Blair’s stomach twist. 

“Not much,” she says. 

“I don’t see a ring. Is he single?”

“No,” is Blair’s immediate answer, which,  _ woah. _ “I mean, I don’t know.”

Kerri nods resolutely, a long manicured nail tapping on Blair’s desk. She holds it up, as if to say  _ Let’s see.  _ Blair’s stomach twists, turns, does a backflip. She’s hungry, probably, so she grabs at one of the heart-shaped sugar free cookies. The icing tastes like strawberries. 

It’s the grey sweater. That’s what’s making him look so appealing. It must contain some weird aphrodisiacal properties. That and his smile. It’s a nice smile, objectively. And it’s pointed at Kerri, sheepish and  _ sweet. _

As the parents start to filter out, Blair stalks around the hallway between the two classrooms, her hands clasped innocently behind her back. 

“You want something, Waldorf?”

“Going out with a student's mother is in bad taste, don’t you think?”

“Last time I checked Hadley Albright was in fourth grade.”

“So?”

_ “So, _ she’s not my student.”

“Please, you’re not seriously thinking about going out with her.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“She’s not your type.”

“How do you know what my type is?”

“I don’t,” Blair says tightly. “But whatever it is, it’s not Kerri Albright.”

“Would it bother you if she was?”

“What? Of course not. I just think you’d be wasting your time. And it’s not like you have much time left to waste.”

It’s too far. She sees it in the downturn of his lips, the way he draws away ever so slightly, and she wants to take it back, scoop the words out of the air and swallow them back down. It’s not true, it’s so obviously not true, but Dan won’t look at her, and she knows this is probably one of those moments for him; the ones where he wishes he could just tell her to  _ fuck off. _

“We’ll see about that,” he says. “Tomorrow night.”

Blair doesn’t know why it feels like he just did.

“You’re seriously going to go out with a woman just to spite me?”

“No, I’m seriously going to go out with a woman because she asked me. Spiting you is just an added bonus.”

  
  


*

She glances up at the clock, then back down at the same page she’s read four times over. 

Dan doesn’t seem like the guy to sleep with a woman on the first date. Not that she cares. 

She sighs, flipping to the back of the book to read Wentworth’s letter again. 

  
  


*

Monday brings a reprieve from the snow, and the seasonal debut of her cherry-printed dress, a tad too short for her taste when worn with the ruby red heels, but she feels cute and festive, so she can look past it. When she turns into the teacher’s lounge, Humphrey’s already there. He looks up, stopping short at the sight of her. 

She raises a brow. “Planning another attack?”

He swallows, shakes his head, and then he’s back, that relaxed smile and gleam in his eye. "Do your hands ever start to cramp from holding onto that grudge?”

She breezes past him, and he makes a show of covering the top of his cup with his hand. The whole room smells like that tea he drinks, like a warmer day than the one they’re having. When she glances over, he’s still there, just  _ looking _ at her. Less like a circus performer and more like she’s a starlit sky. She hates it. He’s not supposed to look at her like that. She’s not supposed to like that he’s looking at her like that.

“What is it, Humphrey?”

“Nothing,” he says, heading for the hallway. “Forget it.”

Dan spins in his chair when she knocks, stretching out his legs and waving at her companionably. She allows herself to think he’s cute on a completely superficial level. She’s always been incredibly shallow, anyway. 

“Could you come here?”

Dan’s head tilts as if to observe her. He’s smiling. She doesn’t like the look of that. 

“Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“I’d like to know what you’re pulling me away from my work for.”

She crosses her arms, props a hip against the doorframe. “Busy day of grading finger paintings?”

“You really don’t know how to ask someone for a favour, do you?”

“I need something off a shelf,” she grumbles. “I can’t reach.”

Dan’s smile only stretches wider. “Blair Waldorf needs Dan Humphrey’s help. I feel like I should contact  _ the Times _ .”

“Would you just stuff it and get over here?”

He does, his amused smile grating her as she points out the box of extra craft supplies on the top shelf. He slides it on the desk, then takes a seat on the edge himself. She gives him a pointed look, but allows it, sitting down to sort through the box. 

“How’d your date with Kerri Albright go?”

“I’ve had worse.”

“So not your soulmate?”

He rolls his eyes. “She’s – she’s very nice, we just…” he trails off, shrugging. Off Blair’s raised brow, he continues, “She likes summers in Cape May and I like sitting at home reading Proust.”

Blair’s brow only draws higher. “You’re into  _ Proust?” _

“Believe it or not, I do have reading comprehension higher than  _ The Very Hungry Caterpillar _ .”

“I’m just… surprised, is all,” she says. “I am, too. Into Proust.”

“Which doesn’t surprise me, because I know your reading comprehension rises above  _ Fellatio with Fabio.” _

Her mouth drops open, and his hand raises, shaking his head. “That was – I’m sorry. The filter flips off when the kids aren’t around.”

She crosses one leg over the other, catching the way she catches Dan’s attention. He clears his throat, running his hand through his hair. 

“Bottom line is, once she got past my good looks and charm, she realized I was… incredibly boring.”

_ Boring _ isn’t the first word that comes to mind when she thinks of Humphrey (not that she thinks of Humphrey  _ often) _ . He can hold his own in arguments, he always has his students make her cupcakes and a card for her birthday, he replaced the pink peonies on her desk with yellow ones just to screw with her after she replaced the tea in his thermos with her perfume. And sitting at home reading Proust doesn’t even sound boring. It sounds a lot like what she does. It sounds —

“What’re you doing teaching the first grade?” she says.

“I like kids,” he says simply. “They’re good company. And they like me. They always have.” 

She shifts, uncrossing her legs just to see his gaze drop back to them, like a cat with a laser pointer, so clearly wanting to touch. It shouldn’t surprise her how much she wants it, too, but it does. 

“What about you?” he says. “You obviously don’t do this for the money.”

“They look up to me. To them, I’m this… grown up who knows everything and can do no wrong. It’s nice to be looked at like that.”

“So it’s an ego thing,” he says softly. Blair laughs despite herself. 

“I know what it’s like to have a home that feels cold and unwelcoming. No kid should feel like that. They should feel loved.”

“You do a good job of that,” Dan says.

“You’re really great with them,” she says back, and it feels so obvious, she doesn’t know why it sounds like an admission. There’s a lull in the room, comfortable silence amongst them as she shuffles through scraps of construction paper and star stickers. “Do you want kids of your own?”

He doesn’t seem surprised by the question, but something shifts in his eyes, shoulders dropping like he’s curling in on himself. He nods, and she thinks it better to not push it. 

“So do I,” she says. She stands, reaching past him for some scissors, his eyes following her hand. 

“What, uh… whatever happened to that?” 

Sometimes, she still moves to fiddle with the ring, surprised to find it gone. She’d worn it for so long it had become an extension of herself. 

“He wasn’t the one,” she says. “There was no use in dragging it all the way to the altar after I figured that out.”

“It was a nice ring.”

“You made fun of it.”

“I was jealous. Not the kinda thing you can get on a teacher’s salary.”

“So it was an ego thing,” Blair says lightly. When Dan cracks a smile, she knows exactly where the wooziness is coming from. “The ring’s not worth anything if it’s not from a good man.”

Dan looks at her a little wistfully, and she feels like she did in that moment before he kissed her all over again, like stale fruity flavouring and her heart beating through her throat. 

“Not the one,” Dan echoes. “Do you… are you ever afraid that the one for you won’t see you as the one for them?”

She swallows, her head doing some sort of nod-shake combination, a nonanswer. She takes a seat again, smoothing over her skirt, and he waves her off. 

“I’ll, uh, let you get back to work.”

She almost wants him to stay, kick his feet up and tease her to no end. She’s spent countless lunches like this, alone in her classroom with him alone in his across the hall. She likes his quiet company. But there’s no good reason to ask him to, so she watches him go, looking back down at her box of art supplies abruptly when she sees him pause in the doorway. 

“You look nice,” he says. “That’s what I wanted to say this morning.”

*

**Dan Humphrey (5:46 a.m.):**

SOS

She squints at the screen for a while, then clicks around to make sure her sleep-addled mind isn’t playing tricks on her, that the text isn’t from Serena or Nate, and it is, in fact, from —

**Blair (5:49 a.m.):**

No.

**Dan Humphrey (5:50 a.m.):**

I need you

**Blair (5:50 a.m.):**

Don’t want to take me to dinner first?

**Dan Humphrey (5:50 a.m.):**

I’d send you one of those middle finger emoticons but I don’t know where they are

**Blair (5:50 a.m.):**

What do you want, grandpa?

**Dan Humphrey (5:51 a.m.):**

Family emergency. Won’t make it in on time. Need you to entertain for an hour or two

It takes a moment for the words to garner meaning in her pre-coffee brain, but then she’s pushing the covers off herself and stepping into her slippers. 

**Blair (5:51 a.m.):**

You’re okay?

**Dan Humphrey (5:51 a.m.):**

Yeah. Long story. I’ll owe you for the rest of time

**Dan Humphrey (5:52 a.m.):**

Or at least the school year

**Blair (5:52 a.m.):**

Fine. But if I get projectile vomited on I reserve the right to kill you without repercussions.

**Dan Humphrey (5:52 a.m.):**

Believe me, I’m the only one who’s gonna be covered in vomit

**Dan Humphrey (5:53 a.m.):**

Don’t forget to give them all their high five/handshakes 

**Blair (5:53 a.m.):**

Wouldn’t dream of it. 

**Dan Humphrey (5:56 a.m.):**

Thank you Blair

*

Blair isn’t totally confident in her ability to keep a bunch of six year olds alive but she pops a movie in the projector screen of her own classroom and takes the challenge head on. It helps that they’re cute, and are already fond of her and her colourful outfits, albeit loud and suspiciously sticky. She runs out of entertainment fast, though, and she has to think quick on her feet. Luckily, Blair’s always been good at that. 

It occurs to her halfway through her valentine’s making tutorial that this is going to seriously put a dent in her lead against Humphrey this year. She finds she doesn’t mind all that much. 

After one glue-hair and  _ multiple _ glitter mishaps, Blair finally relaxes back into the seat behind Dan’s cluttered desk. Without really meaning to, she starts rearranging things, putting pens back in their holders and candy wrappers in the garbage. She opens a drawer to deposit a bunch of animal shaped erasers, half-expecting to find it stuffed full of single moms phone numbers. She sifts through its contents, mostly green tea packets and students stick figure drawings, before unearthing a squashed pack of cigarettes.  _ Finally,  _ getting somewhere.

She’s pried out of her snooping by a chorus of cheers, turning to see Dan coming through the door, bombarded by the group, all wanting to show off their handmade valentines. 

“You stopped to get coffee?” 

“It’s not – it’s for you,” he says, handing it out to her. “Tightly sealed.”

His hair is wet and frizzing, dark circles shadowing under his eyes. He looks like he could probably use one of those stashed cigarettes. 

“Have you slept?”

“I’m fine,” he says, that automatic answer she recognizes so well, only because she’s mastered it herself.

“Go home,” she says softly. “I’ll look after them.”

“You’ve done more than enough,” he says. “Thank you, really.”

Without thinking about it, she helps him push his dampened jacket off his shoulders, moving to hang it on the back of the classroom door. She takes a sip of the coffee on her way back to him. It’s just the way she likes it.

“You’ve got –“ he reaches up, swiping his thumb on her cheekbone. “Glitter.”

His hands are still New-York-winter cold, but her cheeks flare up like he’s tending a hearth, lingering there like he’s trying to catch some of the warmth. 

“I think my kids' valentines are gonna be better than your kids' valentines.”

She laughs, bumping her shoulder against his. “You wanna bet on that?”

*

“Hey! What’d I say about running in the halls?”

Blair smiles to herself, peeking her head out the door to catch a glimpse of an unamused Dan standing with his arms crossed at the head of the hall, one of his students zipping past her. He makes it to the base of the stairs before his foot catches on a step, sending him toppling over with a scream. 

She runs right into Dan on her rush over, although Dan doesn’t seem to even register it, scooping him up, palming the back of his head softly. 

“Did you hit your head, Joey?”

Joey shakes his head, sniffling into Dan’s collar, grasping a handful of his shirt. 

“He’s bleeding,” Blair whispers. She follows Dan into his classroom, where he sits Joey carefully on the edge of his desk. She brushes the red curls from his eyes, dabbing at his tears with a tissue as Dan cleans off the scrape on his elbow. 

“That’s why we don’t run in the halls, bud.”

“M’sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Dan says, placing a  _ Charlie Brown _ bandaid over the scrape. “As long as you’re okay.”

He smooths the bandaid over gently, then tips Joey’s chin up with a finger, smiling at him. Blair hasn’t had a lot of gentleness in her life. She thinks she might want to start letting it in. 

Joey tilts his head up to smile at Blair with a missing-tooth grin. 

“Hi, Miss Waldorf.”

“Hi, hon.”

“Mr. Humphrey thinks you’re really, really,  _ really _ pretty.”

Blair bites back a laugh, raising a brow. “Does he now?”

Joey nods, his wet eyes widening. “Did you get his valentine?”

“Did I –”

“Joey,” Dan tries, but Joey continues obliviously, his shoes lighting up when he swings his feet. 

“Mr. Humphrey said you make valentines to show your friends you love them, but sometimes your friends don’t know you love them, so you can make them a valentine to tell them.”

“Joey,” Dan says again. “You’re all good to go, buddy.”

“Not yet,” Blair says, kissing the pads of her fingers then pressing them gingerly to the top of Joey’s bandaid. “There you go. All better.”

Her hands are trembling a little when she pulls them back, and she clasps them behind her back. Dan lifts Joey off the desk with a comical groan that earns him a tiny giggle, his hand smoothing over Joey’s hair.

“He asked,” Dan says.

“What?”

“Joey asked if I thought you were pretty,” he says, wringing a hand on the back of his neck. “I’m not going around telling six year olds that I’m attracted to you.”

She nods. There’s a patch of snot near his collar, a small streak of blood on his shirt. The air between them is tight with a different kind of tension than she’s ever felt around him. The kind she’s really afraid to break. 

“About what Joey said –“

“It’s okay. Kids misunderstand things,” she says. Dan blinks away, shoulders hunching in a recoil she’s come to recognize. There’s a long, quiet moment, where Blair finds herself staring at the curve of his mouth, the pink of his tongue as it swipes over his bottom lip nervously. She reaches out, placing a light hand over his. “Did you really make me a valentine?”

He’s blushing, has been blushing since the first mention of the word by Joey. “No. I mean, yeah – I did, but it’s – it’s stupid. I just –“ he fumbles with a drawer, the same one with the secret cigarette stash, pulling out a pink piece of construction paper, cut into a heart and bathed in red and gold glitter. 

_ I’ve been meaning to say, that I can’t make this feeling go away. _

_ It’s probably not news, that my heart belongs to you.  _

_ Sorry if that ruins your Valentine’s day.  _

She’s had to have read it ten times over when Dan finally says:

“Blair, I –“

_ “Mr. Humphrey!” _

Dan clears his throat. “Duty calls.”

And then he’s gone, leaving her standing amongst the horribly clashing colours of his classroom, clutching the little paper heart, the glitter sticking to her fingers. 

*

The crash startles her out of her quiet lunch, escaping away in the pages of her cracked-spine paperback. She drops the book in her panic, rushing across the hall to find Dan bent over a mess of scattered picture books. 

“What the hell are you doing?”

Dan straightens, wincing as he touches a hand to his forehead.

“Klutz,” she chides, grabbing him by the forearm and tugging him to his desk, making him lean down so she can inspect his head. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Dan laughs, but doesn’t make an effort to stop her, letting her run her hands through his hair. “I’m not nine.”

“Of course not. My nine year olds are more coordinated than you.”

She brushes her thumb over his temple, hands stalling on either side of his head when she registers how close his face is to hers. He’s just staring at her, his breath coming out quick and hitched, a jagged edge compared to all his softness. 

“I think you’re broken,” she says. “You’re not doing that inane rambling thing.”

He swallows, the edge of a smile lifting at the corner of his lips. He gives her a halfhearted shrug, leaning his head into her hand. 

“Come on, Mr. Humphrey, tell me something that’ll make my eyes roll into the back of my head.”

His bottom lip catches on his teeth, and she sways the smallest bit forward, running her hand idly through his hair again. 

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he says quietly. 

“I know that. That’s got to be the least effective way to off yourself.”

“Not that,” he says. “The coffee. You caught me off guard. I don’t usually get caught off guard, but you were so… so pretty, and so mean for no reason. I hate being caught off guard, and I hated the effect you had on me, and I hated that I spent the entire date with Kerri thinking about you. You’re the most infuriating person I’ve ever met and you annoy me to no end and –“

“Okay, seems like you’re working fine,” she says. She smooths his hair down, which proves futile, the curls springing back up out of place. Carefully, she leans forward and presses her lips to his temple. “All better?”

He shakes his head. His hand brushes her hip lightly, more a question than anything, and she answers by sliding her fingers to his jaw. She kisses him, or he kisses her, or they meet somewhere in the middle; all Blair knows is his mouth opens underneath hers, and he’s kissing her with a kind of eagerness that makes her dip in his arms like one of the girls on the covers of her paperback Harlequins. His hands smooth up from her waist to the center of her back, his mouth following hers when she breaks away out of breath. He smiles, so open and earnest she can’t help but lean in to kiss him again. 

She’s flushed all over, his nose nudging her cheek on his way to kiss under her ear. 

“Does this mean we can call a truce?”

She threads her fingers through his hair, tugging him back to face her. “Not likely.”

“Mr. Humphrey?”

They jump apart, Blair stumbling over herself, catching the edge of the desk. One of Dan’s little ones, a pig-tailed blonde, peers up at them curiously.

“Are you sad, Mr. Humphrey?”

“What?” he says, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth, coming away with a light smearing of pink lipstick. 

“Is that why Miss Waldorf was giving you a hug? Because you’re sad?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.”

“Are you better now?”

Blair covers her face with her hands, unable to contain her laughter. Dan knocks his shoulder against hers, shaking his head. “Yeah. All better.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i posted my first dair fic one year ago today and i just want to say again how much i appreciate every one of your sweet comments and messages. thank you for reading <3 i wanted to post something super fluffy because i have some ANGST on the way. love u all!!!


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